After an eight-year break, the Celtic ensemble Solas is marking its 30th anniversary with a tour, but it took a little bit of time to get back into shape, according to multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan.

“This run for us is about five weeks which, having not been touring for so long, we had to go into training,” he said with a laugh. “Sort of get our ‘Rocky’ music going. … We’ve been out at altitude for a lot of it. So it’s like we’ve been training at above a mile high, so we’re really good now that we’re back at sea level. We’ve got extraordinary strength.”

Three of the band’s original members — Egan (flute, tenor banjo, nylon guitar, whistles, mandolin), John Williams (button accordion, concertina) and Winifred Horan (fiddle) — will be joined by Nuala Kennedy (vocals, flute) and Alan Murray (guitar, bouzouki, vocals) when their tour visits City Winery Pittsburgh on March 4.

“It’s been going great. After our eight-year hiatus — we’ve been pretty quiet over that period of time — we were not entirely sure if the audiences would be there when we came back, and if they were, what they’d be like,” Egan said, “It’s really been heartwarming, the reception that we’ve been getting each night, so it’s been going great.”

The Irish-American/folk band, which formed in 1996, have released a live album spanning multiple concerts from over the years, with the CD only available at shows.

In a call Thursday from the road, Egan discussed ending the hiatus, the band’s sound and choosing relevant cover songs:

How did you know that now was the right time to end the hiatus?

It was just a feeling, really, that at some point when we decided to go on a break, it was left open-ended. It wasn’t definitive in any way, one way or the other, and in the back of my mind, I always felt that if there was to be an opportunity for us to come back together, it would just feel like a very organic notion that might begin to take hold. And that’s what happened.

Over that course of the break, periodically I would get an email with recordings that our soundman had made when we had been touring in Europe. Unbeknownst to us, he had been making recordings when he could of some of the shows. So he would just send those on to me and I put them away and I never really listened to them. It was really in the last year I worked up the nerve to take a listen to what those were, and it brought back some nice memories. I think it was the spark that rekindled the idea of maybe this might be a thing to see if we could get back together and see if anyone was interested.

It made you miss these type of performances a little bit?

Yeah, Solas, we’ve made lots of albums over the years, but we’ve really been essentially a live (band). The best part of Solas I think happens on stage and in that sort of interaction with the audience. I think that was the thing that I was responding to in the recordings because in that live environment, and especially not knowing that you’re being recorded, there was this energy and unselfconsciousness in the playing and some risk-taking.

Sometimes the risk took off, and sometimes it was a little wobble, but it was the energy and the spirit of it that I think was the thing that I was responding to, and having had enough time away from the actual memory of the performance that it was almost as if I was listening to something else, that you were removed far enough away from it to actually just respond to the energy and the spirit of it. In fact, those recordings ended up becoming what became our new album because we took a bunch of those recordings — I think 14 tracks or something — and compiled a live album that represents the best part of the band, which is just playing head down in front of the audience.

How have the new members fit in, and has it changed the band dynamics at all?

They’ve fit in really, really great. There’s always going to be a different energy when you have new people sitting in with you. But you want to create the space for them to feel free to express themselves in that context. It’s not like there’s a requirement to sound like someone else. We want them to be themselves. That’s the contribution, and we benefit from that. We’re really starting to find our groove with their contributions.

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With Solas’ music, how do you think it bridges traditional Irish songs with a modern influence?

All of our backgrounds are firmly in the Irish tradition, and I think there’s a misconception that if you come from the background of a very strong tradition that you’re sort of closed off to outside influences. But the band formed in New York in the mid ‘90s, and even though we were all in that community, we were still in a place where we were fortunate to be exposed to so much other music and other cultures, from everything from mainstream to whatever.

First and foremost, we’re musicians and our ears are always open to things that are interesting. I think we’ve never been shy about incorporating outside influences into what we do. We’re fortunate that Irish music is such a strong tradition and the melodies and the songs are so sturdy that they can withstand to have these other influences sort of hung on them, that you’re never far from the core, even though it could be a contemporary song. It could be taking decidedly non-traditional instruments or production techniques or whatever or harmonic choices. But the structure and the foundation of Irish music is strong enough to withstand an awful lot of coloring that might not be of the Irish hue.

How do you choose the topical covers that you add to the show?

It’s something that was always part of the repertoire of the band. With everything going on, in some ways, unfortunately some of those songs that we recorded 30 years ago — and those songs that had been written 30, 40, 50 years before that — unfortunately, they’re still topical. (laughs) We put into the set for this tour a Peggy Seeger song called “Song of Choice,” which we recorded on our third album with Iris DeMent.

That song is a warning about the encroaching fascist state. And it’s sad that that song has a relevance today. It’s a powerful song, and we’ve been doing it each night, as well as a Woody Guthrie song, “Pastures of Plenty.” There are examples of songs that are not of the Irish tradition but easily fit in to what Irish music is, which, in a lot of ways, is music that is in opposition to imperialism and oppression and all of these things. So contextually, it’s not a far stretch.

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